Diver's lifejackets

[Anthony Appleyard]

(I am in England.) Divers' inflatable lifejackets (see Fenzy - Wikipedia ) :: are they still being used or made? Or have stabjackets and wingses displaced them completely? When I started diving, divers' inflatable lifejackets were in common use, but I did not come across stabjackets until later. A Google search today found several industrial compressed-air breathing sets whose name contain "Fenzy" but they are made by Honeywell : see e.g. Fenzy X-Pro SCBA | Respiratory Protection | Honeywell Safety . What has happened to the Fenzy firm? Has it been taken over, and by who and when?

 

[2airishuman]

The "horse collar" BC largely disappeared and was replaced by the jacket BC in the 1980s. Like some of the horse collars, some early jacket BCs had a carbon dioxide inflator cartridge for use in emergencies. The safety record of these was poor because the number and severity of injuries due to rapid ascent (whether after inadvertent or deliberate activation) exceeded the number of injuries prevented. I'm not sure when they disappeared completely. I have a Scubapro jacket BC from some time in the 1990s that has the fitting to add one.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

They haven't disappeared. My friend Andy Saxon just got a new one to replace the one he had been using for decades.

 

[Anthony Appleyard]

I had a Fenzy and it had a compressed-air cylinder that could be refilled from an aqualung cylinder. We were never told about lifejacket accidents such as described above; perhaps the accident rate depended on how well-designed the lifejacket was; it seems that more than one firm makes them.

Before that, I had a diver's lifejacket (not Fenzy) that had a carbon-dioxide cylinder.

Lifejacket to rebreather
See that link on the rebreather site for a thread that mentions diver's lifejackets.

But please, what happened to the Fenzy firm? (Before lifejackets, they made industrial rebreathers, from 1920 or before.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If any of you is in Wikipedia and has a Fenzy lifejacket, it would be useful if he could photograph it and upload the image to Wikipedia and put a link to it in the page
Fenzy - Wikipedia

 

[chrisch]

...
But please, what happened to the Fenzy firm? (Before lifejackets, they made industrial rebreathers, from 1920 or before.)

Bought out by Honeywell.

 

[Akimbo]

...We were never told about lifejacket accidents such as described above...

I never heard about accidental underwater inflation either. The well-known problem was the Aluminum CO2 cartridge inflator mechanism would corrode and fail to function.

For other readers: The Mae West style horse collar vests were used in the 1950s and 60s and was for surface use only. As I was told, the Mae West nickname came from World War II flight crews (I'll leave it to your imagination how it got the name). Early divers got them at war surplus stores so diving equipment manufacturers started selling newly manufactured vests.

The Fenzy horse collar vest came out in the mid-1960s and was also designed for emergency use only. It could be inflated at depth, had an OPV (Over Pressure Valve), an small HP air bottle for inflation, and a rapid manual dump to control ascent rate. They were considered very expensive at the time they were introduced so very few armature divers invested in them. They slowly became coveted as divers noticed professional underwater photographers and Skin Diver Magazine staff using them, even though they were relatively very bulky (compared to nothing or a Mae West). It was not designed as a buoyancy compensator.

A lot of divers replaced the manual inflation/dump mouthpiece with power inflators, which allowed it to function as a BC and emergency buoyancy device. Several competitors introduced vests with and without the HP air bottle about the time that wings and poodle-jacket BCs were introduced.

 

[Anthony Appleyard]

Bought out by Honeywell.

But when? Is there an online reference describing this takeover?

Are Fenzy brand diver's lifejackets still being made?

Does Fenzy keep semi-independence as a department within Honeywell?

 

[Bob DBF]

I never heard about accidental underwater inflation either.

Since the CO2 cartridge (2 for a large jacket) was made to fill the Mae West/BC on the surface, the deeper you are when it happens, the easier it would be to control the issue. I never had, or heard of any accidental underwater inflation, but if it did happen it may not have been worth mentioning.

As an aside, I had a CO2 detonation cord catch on the gunwale of a canoe, inflated the BC and left me hanging and floating at a weird angle untill I could get untangled. Didn't look like a SCUBA god that dive. I stopped diving out of canoes shortly thereafter.


Bob

 

[Akimbo]

Since the CO2 cartridge (2 for a large jacket) was made to fill the Mae West/BC on the surface, the deeper you are when it happens, the easier it would be to control the issue.

True. There might be a small problem at 60' but you would probably find yourself on the surface before you could react if it went off at 15'. I don't remember how much buoyancy they provided but a lot less than today's BCs. They were a lot like the snorkeling vests sold now. It would be no problem at all if there was a way to dump the gas, but the oral inflator nipple was really small. The spring-loaded valve on the tube was "push-to-open" so it was easy to orally inflate but a bit awkward to deflate.

 

[Fibonacci]

As an aside, I had a CO2 detonation cord catch on the gunwale of a canoe, inflated the BC and left me hanging and floating at a weird angle untill I could get untangled. Didn't look like a SCUBA god that dive. I stopped diving out of canoes shortly thereafter.
Bob

Ah yes I remember always lusting after a Fenzy vest with the very cool 0.4L decantable cylinder... they were eye-wateringly expensive back in the day so any spare cash went into one of those new-fangled SPG's... no-one had octos!

I ended up with a Tabata horsecollar BC (with CO2 cartridge) that served me well... and I only once caught the lanyard when getting into a Zodiac... instant Pufferfish